As of this moment, The Modern American Revolution Facebookgroup is boasts 9,809 members (the 10,000th gets a free tee!) and the slogan,
“The answer to 1984 is 1776.”
THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE INSANE
It is not easy, at first glance, to tell exactly what
kind of group the MAR really is. I looked into the group with a particular stereotype
in mind: I was looking for a sort of republican jihad, energized gun-nuts,
freedom-fetishists of the sort who often speak for the Tea Party, and an
undercurrent of closeted racism and xenophobia. In fact, I was surprised by how
agreeable I found large chunks of the MAR’s stated agenda. In its rambling description, the MAR includes a litany of specific and not-so-specific
goals for American government.
From the outset, the MAR does not resemble a typical
right-wing organization. From my liberal position, it is as though this list is
the result of a collaboration of three different authors: the good (“End
Corporate Personhood,” “Stop Polluting the Air, Water & Food”), the bad (“Restore
and Empower States Rights,” “Fair Taxes for Everyone”) and the insane, which
seeks the conversion of “All Military Bases around the World into Orchards and
Vineyards” among other uncommon and unlikely ideas.
ABOUT TIME
Is a MAR a gathering place for the good, the bad, or the insane?
The question is easier to answer after a week or so following the group’s posts
on my newsfeed. Regardless of the group's intentions, they attract from the fringe. One post time-stamped “about an hour ago” shared a news-stylearticle about the impending March 11th impeachment of PresidentObama. Immediately dozens (by now, hundreds) of followers started singing their
hallelujahs. It made no difference that there is no impending March 11th
impeachment of the president—the article is a hoax—since fewer than 1
in 10 commenter seemed to be aware of it. One after another, the gallery chimed in: "ABOUT TIME!"
The article was not just a hoax, but an obvious one: it
referenced the upcoming 2012 election (from over 3 months ago); made no direct
attributions (“sources close to congressional aides say…”); contains no
bylines, publication names or dates; and appeared to be the only source on the
entire Internet for what, if true, would instantly become a top news story
around the world.
More than those aspects of the sham that require basic
critical-thinking to unravel, what sets this story farthest apart is that it
just doesn’t sound true, does it? I make
the mistake of assuming that if one cares enough about politics to want the
president impeached, one must know enough to suspect that it isn’t likely. Even if
you try to ignore politics, the news should surprise you. Surely there would
have been warning signs. Surely there would have been a great uproar. Surely,
like Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinski, you could not have avoided hearing about
it if you tried.
This was not the first piece of bad intel propagated by the
group—the MAR is, I suspect, naïve to the realities behind many of the
materials they share. Last week I corrected a pie chart that showed over 50% ofPres. Obama’s proposed FY2013 budget is military spending. It should seem
obvious that the government does not spend half of its entire budget on the
military, but there you have it. Not a single person doubted it before I told
them, and I'm not sure many doubt it now.
How could it be that a group of people so vehemently
skeptical about, among other matters, Obama’s nationality and religion, 9/11,
and the press—they praise themselves as more “awake” than the rest of the
country—could also be so vulnerable to misinformation?
SHADOWS ON THE WALL OF AN ECHO CHAMBER (and other mixed-metaphors)
The explanation, I think, is that many of the group's members are not skeptical
with their minds; they are skeptical with their hearts. When an event occurs
that they do not personally like, they get the “impression” that something
about it must be objectively wrong. They listen to supporters of the “bad thing”
and they make note of inconsistencies, details they believe they are not told
and things they just don’t understand. Then they look to others to confirm
their version of reality. This is a politic of mass delusion in which we all participate, to a certain extent. We saw it in a small way on election night, as half the country was, despite a
consensus among the national polls, shocked when Pres. Obama handily won.
The reason so many admirers of groups like the Modern
American Revolution are so quick to believe that impeachment is right around
the corner is because they HEAR the uproar from one another, they SEE the
warning signs at the tips of each other’s’ fingers, and they have the
impression that they, their friends, their neighbors and their websites are
part of a large movement. The ugly truth is that their movement is probably as
fictitious as their propaganda. While there are legitimate criticisms of Pres.
Obama’s performance in office and there are legitimate normative reasons to
oppose any of his policies, the vast majority of Americans have no particular
revolutionary fervor. In fact, Obama won our popularity contest twice!
A GREATER TRUTH
Since the end of the first American revolution, there have always been groups on the society's fringe calling for another (the one time they tried, it didn't end so well). Much like
religious zealots who, century after century, believe that they are chosen to live in the End
Times, the modern, right-wing revolutionary couches his struggle with the
government in the rhetoric of an idealized past and an almost cosmic war of
good vs. evil, freedom vs. tyranny, and us vs. them with no middle ground.
Q'S FOR THE REVOLUTIONARY A
Q'S FOR THE REVOLUTIONARY A
1.
Assuming anything but the removal of its current
leaders from power, what is the minimum you would accept in a negotiation with
the federal government to avoid rebellion?
2.
Do you consider yourself more gullible about
anti-Obama information than pro-Obama information? If so, does that bother you?
3.
Is an armed revolution
something that can be militarily won? Will conventional arms allow you to
resist a true, government crackdown in this day and age?
4.
The year in 2017: the end of the 2nd
American Revolution. The tyrant has hanged, his government collapsed. True
patriots thank one another and go home for a good night’s sleep and 4.5 minutes of solid missionary-style. What do you do
tomorrow? What does the new America look like, who runs it, and how many of us
are left? Does this matter, or is the rebellion its own point?
